Muriel Schwenck
Beloved Curmudgeon
Political correctness interferes with learning.
19 April 2019
I don't have a problem with the exam question. It does not trivialize history, it brings real events to life by posing a real life example of a terrible event, which makes the equation more interesting. (Those are students who won't yell "you're a Nazi!" when someone says something objectionable.) Also, only the administration is upset by this but apparently no student complained about the question. The professor is in trouble, and a school newspaper for not taking it seriously.
Middlebury College professor asked students to calculate dose of lethal gas used in Nazi gas chambers
A Middlebury College chemistry professor’s exam question asked students to calculate the lethal dose of the poisonous gas used by Nazis during the Holocaust, reports say.
www.foxnews.com
A Middlebury College chemistry professor’s exam question asked students to calculate the lethal dose of the poisonous gas used by Nazis during the Holocaust, reports say.
In the question, professor Jeff Byers asked students to calculate the amount of Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN) that would be a lethal dose in a particular room, the student-run newspaper, The Middlebury Campus, reported.
HCN, the question’s preamble said, was a poisonous gas used by Nazi Germany “to horrific ends in the gas chambers during The Holocaust.”
[...]
The Vermont liberal arts college said last week that it was investigating the incident under the terms of its faculty misconduct policy. Meanwhile, Byers has taken a leave of absence.
"This inexplicable failure of judgment trivializes one of the most horrific events in world history, violates core institutional values, and simply has no place on our campus," Middlebury President Laurie Patton wrote in a statement last week. "We expect our faculty to teach and lead with thoughtfulness, good judgment, and maturity. To say we have fallen short in this instance is an understatement.”
The school said an investigation into Byers' past exams also found a second objectionable exam question that made references to the Ku Klux Klan, that “appeared to be humorous in intent, but which was gratuitous and offensive.”
[...]
Byers apologized to students in a letter posted on the school’s website on April 10.
[...]
The school's Community Bias Response Team, which is charged with assessing and responding to bias incidents, sent out a campus wide email criticizing both the exam question and The Local Noodle for making light of it, The Middlebury Campus reported.
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I don't have a problem with the exam question. It does not trivialize history, it brings real events to life by posing a real life example of a terrible event, which makes the equation more interesting. (Those are students who won't yell "you're a Nazi!" when someone says something objectionable.) Also, only the administration is upset by this but apparently no student complained about the question. The professor is in trouble, and a school newspaper for not taking it seriously.